Today we are headed to one of our favorite old places to play, Gabe’s Oasis, in Iowa City. We’ve had lots of good times at the club and while we’ve never been a big draw there, we always seem to attract a small but vocal crowd that appreciates the band.
But first, we have some business to do in St. Louis and so we pull out of Randy’s driveway and start looking for a bank. We are getting paid mostly in cash on this tour (with a few of the larger paychecks going directly to the booking agency) and clearing a few thousand a week so it’s a little scary to carry around that much cash. We save out enough to buy gas and pay for the hotel rooms every week, but the rest we hand over to a teller and hope that it magically finds its way back to our little bank on Huntington Ave. We all know the story of the Lyres manager who lost their bankroll after a successful European tour and no one wants to join him in the folklore.
Our money laundering complete, we head north to Iowa City, spending some time on Highway 61, our first time on the storied road and a quiet thrill for me, before it changes names at the Iowa state line and takes us into the city. As we schlep the gear up the impossibly steep iron staircase at the back of the club, I can’t help but flashback to our first gig there in the winter of 1987, when we were barely a band, just 4 guys in a rickety van promoting our little EP in the middle of Iowa, squeezing a mini-tour into Jeff’s Spring Break from college, in another life. Tomorrow: 4th of July fireworks.
Calculating Route... 